Torture, Occupation and Genocide
Torture, Occupation and Genocide *US citizens aren't exempt. We're all "enemy combatants" under this
law. Anyone charged under it loses all constitutionally protected rights
and can be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment including torture.
By Stephen Lendman
Special to PalestineChronicle. com*
On October 5, George Bush confronted a public uproar and defended his
administration claiming "This government does not torture people." That
claim was hardly accurate. Once secret US Department of Justice (DOJ)
legal opinions confirm the Bush administration condones torture by
endorsing "the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the
Central Intelligence Agency." It also condones paramilitary thuggery,
oppressive occupation, and genocide.
*Torture as Policy under George Bush*
In a hollow posturing gesture, DOJ publicly declared torture "abhorrent"
in a December, 2004 legal opinion. That secretly changed after Alberto
Gonzales became Attorney General in February, 2005 and authorized
physical and psychological brutality as official administration policy.
This continues unabated in violation of international and US laws that
include fifth and eighth amendment prohibitions against cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment in all forms for any reason. These
practices been long-standing US official policy, nonetheless, but the
mask came off post-9/11 when former CIA Counterterrorism Center chief
Cofer Black (now Blackwater USA's vice-chairman) told a joint
House-Senate intelligence committee hearing September 26, 2002: "There
was a before-9/11 and an after-9/11 (on the use of torture). After 9/11,
the gloves came off" and "old" standards no longer apply.
Further, George Bush signed a secret September 17, 2001 "finding"
authorizing CIA to kill, capture and detain "Al Qaeda" members anywhere
in the world and rendition them to secret black site torture prisons for
interrogation presumed to include torture.
As White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales then wrote a sweeping
memorandum to George Bush January 25, 2002 calling the Geneva
Conventions "quaint" and "obsolete" and claimed the administration could
ignore Geneva international law in interrogating prisoners henceforth.
He also outlined plans to try prisoners in military "commissions" and
deny them all protections under international law including due process
and habeas rights. DOD Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was on board as well.
In December, 2002, he approved a menu of banned interrogation practices
that allowed most anything short of what would cause organ failure.
A new book called "Administration of Torture," by two ACLU attorneys,
contains evidence (from FOIA requests) from over 100,000 newly released
government documents. It reveals how US military interrogators carried
out abuse and torture orders from their superiors on scores of
prisoners. The book quotes Major General Michael Dunlavey who had DOD
responsibility for interrogations of "suspected terrorists." He and
Guantanamo commander General Geoffrey Miller both told the FBI they got
their "marching orders" from Donald Rumsfeld to use harsh methods at
Guantanamo that presumably were meant for all other US-run torture
prisons as well. It was also revealed that Rumsfeld was "personally
involved" in overseeing the torture-interrogati on of Mohammed al
Qahtani. He was falsely accused of being the 20th 9/11 hijacker,
confessed under torture, and then retracted his testimony later as
completely untrue.
Torture violates international law. The (non-binding) Universal
Declaration of Human Rights outlawed it in 1948. The four 1949 Geneva
Conventions then banned any form of "physical or mental coercion" and
affirmed detainees must at all times be treated humanely. Its first two
conventions protect sick and wounded forces in battle. The third one
defines who is a prisoner of war and establishes "minimum standards" for
POW treatment. The fourth convention applies to civilians and affords
them protections during war that require they be treated humanely. All
four conventions have a common thread called Common Article Three. It
requires non-combatants be treated humanely at all times. There are no
exceptions for any reasons and violations are grave breaches under
Geneva and other international law that constitute crimes of war and
against humanity.
The European Convention followed Geneva in 1950. Then in 1984, the UN
Convention Against Torture became the first binding international
instrument dealing exclusively with the issue of banning torture in any
form for any reason. These are sacred international laws all
signatories, that include the US, are bound by. No longer under George
Bush's unconstitutional "unitary executive" authority power grab
Chalmers Johnson calls a "bald-faced assertion of presidential
supremacy... .dressed up in legalistic mumbo jumbo." Condoning torture as
official policy under it is Exhibit A.
In her important new book, "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang
Defied the law," law professor and current National Lawyers Guild
president Marjorie Cohn calls torture abhorrent and violates at least
two US laws - the 1996 War Crimes Act and 1994 Torture Statute. The US
is also party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) that guarantees the right to life and prohibits cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment.
The 1996 War Crimes Act provides up to life imprisonment or the death
penalty for persons convicted of committing war crimes within or outside
the US. Administration memos from Gonzales, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, and
David Addington supported dictatorial powers for the president and
advised Al Qaeda and Taliban interrogators were exempt from torture laws
under George Bush's "commander-in- chief powers." Cohn, in her book,
explained "the Torture Convention permits no such exemption, even during
wartime."
Yoo and Bybee also distorted what constitutes torture by claiming
psychological harm must last "months or even years." Otherwise, it's
just harsh "enhanced interrogation" of the secret kinds George Bush
authorized in a July, 2006 executive order. They reportedly include
sleep deprivation, simulated drowning, stress positions, prolonged
isolation, sensory deprivation and/or overload, beatings, induced
hypothermia, and more that can cause irreversible physical and
psychological harm including psychoses.
The October, 2006 Military Commissions Act followed, appropriately
called the "torture authorization act." It gives the administration
extraordinary unconstitutional powers to detain, interrogate and
prosecute alleged terror suspects and anyone thought to be their
supporters. The law lets the president designate anyone in the world an
"unlawful enemy combatant," without corroborating evidence, and order
they be arrested and incarcerated indefinitely in military prisons
outside the criminal justice system without habeas and due process
rights. US citizens aren't exempt. We're all "enemy combatants" under
this law. Anyone charged under it loses all constitutionally protected
rights and can be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment including
torture.
Ironically, on the one year anniversary of the Military Commissions Act
enactment, Fr. Louie Vitale and Fr. Steve Kelly were both sentenced to
five months in federal prison for opposing torture. They also oppose
teaching it at Fort Huachuca, Arizona and tried to deliver a letter with
their views to the base commander, Major General Barbara Fast, former
head of military intelligence in Iraq. Both priests were arrested for
trespassing while kneeling in prayer on the base driveway in November,
2006. In an appalling miscarriage of justice, the presiding judge
refused to allow any evidence of torture to be introduced. He also ruled
out discussion of the illegality of the Iraq war and all references to
international law.
Relief from these type abuses are nowhere in sight as leading Democrats
condone them and now assure extremist Attorney General nominee Michael
Mukasey's nomination won't be challenged. He promises business as usual
that's bad news for supporters of the law. He earned his bona fides as a
US District Court Southern District of New York judge by ruling Jose
Padilla, a US citizen, could be imprisoned without trial and held
indefinitely by the military.
Padilla spent three and a half years uncharged in a 9 by 7-foot isolated
South Carolina Navy brig cell where he underwent alternating sensory
deprivation and overload and was denied the right to counsel for two
years. Months of beatings, mind-altering drugs, and denial of medical
treatment destroyed his mind, turned him to mush, and him easy pickings
to convict on all charges without evidence he broke any law. Under Bush
administration justice, we're all potential Jose Padillas in a nation
where the rule of law affords no protection, and torture is the
preferred means of social control.
*Administration Outsourced Paramilitarism*
The Bush administration believes anything government can do private
business does better, so let it. And that applies to the military as
well with Blackwater USA's powerful emergence Exhibit A. Author Jeremy
Scahill portrays the company as "the world's most powerful mercenary
army" in his frightening new book about it. It describes a "shadowy
mercenary company (employing) some of the most feared professional
killers in the world....accustomed to operating without worry of legal
consequences. ...largely off the congressional radar." It has "remarkable
power and protection within the US war apparatus" with unaccountable
license to practice street violence with impunity that includes
cold-blooded murder.
A congressional report indicates Blackwater received more than $1
billion in mostly State Department no-bid contracts since 2001. It's to
provide security services for US diplomats, officials and others once
assigned to the military at around six times the cost and can be up to
$1200 per man-day. With Bush administration backing, it operates outside
the law and Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and is immune from
civil lawsuits like the military. Scahill calls the company the "Bush
administration' s Praetorian Guard" with "immunity and impunity" to do as
it pleases.
Today, around 200,000 private contractors operate in Iraq. Up to 100,000
of them are paramilitary mercenaries from companies like Blackwater,
DynCorp, ArmorGroup, Erinys, Triple Canopy and others like the
Australian-owned Unity Resources that murdered two Iraqi women October
9. Blackwater is the largest, is close to the Bush administration, and
is cashing in big as a war profiteer from huge continuing no-bid contracts.
The company was founded in 1996 by former Navy SEAL Eric Prince who's
also closely allied to the extremist Christian Right. Blackwater came
into its own post-9/11 and is now the world's best connected, largest
paramilitary army. It employs 2300 personnel in nine countries with
20,000 or more others on call as needed. The company also has its own 20
aircraft fleet that includes helicopter gunships as well as a private
intelligence division and a 7000 acre Moyock, North Carolina
headquarters Scahill calls "the world's largest private military base."
Controversy surrounding Blackwater made headlines after its mercenaries
killed as many as 28 Iraqis in al-Nisour September 16 by some accounts
and wounded dozens more. It was only the latest incident involving the
company that has a disturbing history of instigating unprovoked violence
and then falsely claim it acted in self-defense as Eric Prince told
Congress saying his men act "appropriately at all times."
A new congressional account from State Department and company documents
reveals otherwise. It shows the company has been involved in at least
195 "escalation of force" incidents since early 2005 that include
previously unreported Iraqi civilian killings. In at least one of them,
evidence proved Blackwater personnel tried covering up what happened
with a falsified report, and the State Department made no effort to hold
them accountable or order the company to pay compensation to the
families of the victims.
Agence France-Presse reported on September 16 Blackwater personnel shot
recklessly "at everything that moved with a machine gun and even with a
grenade launcher (as well as from two hovering helicopters) . There was
panic. Everyone tried to flee. Vehicles tried to make U-turns to escape.
There were dead bodies and wounded people everywhere. The road was full
of blood. A bus was also hit and several of its occupants were wounded."
Among the dead were women and children. A daughter witnessing her mother
shot in the head and killed said: "They are killers. I swear to God, not
one bullet was shot at them. Why did they shoot us?"
Following the incident, investigations were launched that are little
more than damage control cover-up. The FBI is involved as well as a
joint American-Iraqi inquiry. Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki has gone
back and forth on this one. At first, he demanded Blackwater personnel
leave Iraq. He then backed down under pressure. He'll likely await the
inquiry's findings that are out in part from Iraqi investigators, but
again said he wants Washington to sever all Blackwater ties, remove the
company from Iraq in six months, and have it pay each family $8 million
in compensation.
It won't ever happen, even though early findings conclude Blackwater's
actions were unprovoked, the al-Nisour massacre was a deliberate crime,
those involved in it should be charged, put on trial, and the families
of victims fairly compensated. The findings are similar to an initial US
military report that one Pentagon official confirmed saying Blackwater's
actions were "obviously excessive, it was obviously wrong. The
civilians... .didn't have any weapons (and) none of the IP (Iraqi police)
or any local security forces fired (on Blackwater). "
Investigations are still continuing, the State Department is in damage
control mode, and an October 4 House-passed bill (not retroactive) just
made US contractors accountable for felony crimes under the 2000
Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA). In addition, new
operating procedures have been instituted to paper over the whole
affair. Nothing, in fact, will change, however. Blackwater personnel
will stay in place, none of them will face criminal charges, and things
are again business as usual with the company's paramilitaries back on
Iraqi streets after being banned from operating there by an impotent
prime minister.
A sign of things to come came a day ahead of the October House Committee
on Oversight and Government Reform Blackwater hearing. It was revealed
the company's Presidential Airways subsidiary got a new government
contract to supply aircraft, crew and equipment for flight operations in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Blackwater personnel
may likely show up anywhere and currently patrol New Orleans streets for
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) post-hurricane Katrina. Their
presence is menacing everywhere, and they may show up soon in a
neighborhood near you as the "war on terrorism" touches down at home.
*Imperial Conquest and Occupation*
Current rhetoric aside, even Alan Greenspan's new book admitted what's
"politically inconvenient to acknowledge (but) everyone knows: the Iraq
war is largely about oil" and it was "essential" Saddam be removed to
control it. Unmentioned was Iraq's importance that explains why
Washington plans permanent occupation of the country. The Middle East
has two-thirds of the world's proved oil reserves; Iraq has the most
untapped amounts of it; and it's the easiest gotten, cheap to refine
light sweet kind Big Oil covets. The country is also strategically
located between Saudi Arabia and Iran at the top of the Persian Gulf.
That makes it a perfect site for military bases sitting atop an ocean of
oil worth trillions of dollars and surrounded by lots more of it.
The strategy to seize it was simply conceived but hopelessly flawed -
replace the "cradle of civilization" with a newly created free market
paradise with all that oil as grand prize pickings. It's still up for
grabs, but a huge supportive infrastructure is in place and still being
built for permanent occupation.
By May, 2005, US forces were operating out of 106 bases around the
country from an original 120 number of sites. They range in size from
the huge Main Operating Base (MOB) Camp Victory complex near Baghdad
airport with thousands of US troops to others for fewer numbers called
Forward Operation Sites (FOS) that are still major installations. There
are also many smaller Cooperative Security Locations (CSL) as well as
prisons and detention facilities throughout the country plus others for
Iraqi military and police units.
A sign of permanency are four to six or more super-bases built and
planned, the largest of which is the huge Balad one. It's the major Air
Force facility in the country with its state of the art "Kingpin" air
traffic control center (called the Common Grid Reference System) that
divides the country's airspace into "kill boxes." The Army's largest
logistical support center and secret Combined Joint Special Operations
Task Force (CJSOTF) are also there as well as well as thousands of
civilian contractors in neighborhoods charmingly called "KBR-land."
Balad and other major bases are enormous in size and on the order of
small towns. They encompass 15 - 20 square miles with double runways as
long as 12,000 feet, and Balad's air traffic operates round the clock
and is comparable in number of takeoffs and landings to Chicago's O'Hare
that along with Atlanta's Hartsfield are the world's two busiest airports.
In addition, they have their own neighborhoods and kinds of amenities
found back home. They include department store-sized post exchanges,
fast food outlets, movie theaters with the latest films, swimming pools,
miniature golf courses, elaborate gymnasium and sports facilities,
satellite internet access, cable TV, air-conditioning, international
phone service and more. All the comforts of home including takeout pizza
and Monday night football in the middle of a war zone.
Other major facilities are at al-Talil near Nasiriya in the South; the
largest Marine base at al-Asad in Western Anbar province; al-Qayyara, 50
miles southeast of Mosul in the North; the US military command HQ at
Camp Victory/Camp Liberty near Baghdad International Airport; Camp Marez
near Mosul Airport; Camp Cook north of Baghdad; and a new base near
Irbil in the North. In addition, another new Forward Operating base is
being built near Zurbatiya near the Iranian border to be completed in
November. It's location is provocative as the centerpiece of a new
border control surveillance, monitoring and logistical support strategy
called "Combat Outpost Shocker."
Then, there's what critics call "Fortress Baghdad" or the "ultimate
gated community" inside the city's four square mile fortress-like Green
Zone. It's surrounded by thick blast-proof concrete walls, and to enter
visitors must pass through up to eight checkpoints. Inside, security is
intense and includes full body searches, electronic scanners,
explosive-sniffing dogs and every other human and high-tech measure
imaginable for security.
The US embassy compound is there as well that when finished will be the
largest in the world. It's Vatican-sized in dimensions and hugely
fortified atop 104 acres, or six times larger than the UN complex in New
York. Reports vary on whether 21 or 27 buildings are planned but their
cost plus all facilities and perimeter security will top $1 billion.
Construction is continuing, far behind schedule, it's reported to be
shoddy, and it's already way over budget as predicted so the final cost
remains uncertain but will be plenty.
The compound has everything - its own water, electricity, sewers,
apartment buildings, swimming pool, shops, Marine barracks and will
house more than 1000 civilian staff plus a large private and military
security contingent. For the Iraqi people, it's a hated symbol of
imperial occupation Washington intends to be permanent, but it may in
the end go the way of the Saigon embassy in 1975. That's where the last
US Vietnam remnants were frenetically rooftop-helicoptere d out of the
country in humiliating drawdown defeat. It ended visions of permanence
then the way history may one day repeat in Iraq.
*Imperial Genocide in Iraq*
By any estimate, the human toll in Iraq is horrific from all that
happened after Saddam's August 2, 1990 Kuwait invasion. Four days later,
Operation Desert Shield was launched. It began with US-led UN-imposed
economic sanctions, large US and other troop deployments to the region,
and a sweeping Kuwait-funded PR campaign to win public support for
Operation Desert Storm that began January 17, 1991.
Before it ended six weeks later on February 28, US forces committed
grievous war crime violations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions and UN
and Nuremberg Charters. They included gratuitous mass killings as well
as bombing and destroying essential to life facilities that included:
-- power generating stations;
-- dams;
-- water purification capabilities;
-- sewage treatment and disposal systems;
-- telephone and other communications;
-- hospitals;
-- mosques;
-- residential areas affecting 10-20,000 homes, apartments and other
dwellings;
-- irrigation sites;
-- food processing, storage and distribution facilities;
-- hotels and retail establishments;
-- transportation infrastructure;
-- oil wells, pipelines, refineries and storage tanks;
-- chemical plants;
-- civilian shelters like Al Ameriyya that was attacked February 13,
1991 by two laser-guided "smart bombs" killing around 400 civilians
including 142 children;
-- factories and other commercial operations;
-- government offices;
-- historical sites; and more in a willful malicious effort to return
the country to a pre-industrial age and punish its people horrifically.
Lost was power, clean water, sanitation, fuel, transportation, medical
facilities and medications, adequate food, schools, private dwellings
and places of employment. Early post-war estimates placed the number of
civilians killed at 113,000 (mostly children) according to the Red
Crescent Society of Jordan. In addition, US CENTCOM commander, General
Schwarzkopf and others, estimated 100,000 or more Iraqi military deaths
plus thousands more killed gratuitously as they were retreating in disarray.
What then followed was 12 years of the most comprehensive genocidal
sanctions ever imposed on a country as an act of vengeance and
US-imposed imperial arrogance. They were first adopted in UN Resolution
661 four days after Iraq invaded Kuwait. They included a full trade
embargo that crippled the country economically but initially allowed in
food, medical and other essential humanitarian needs. UN Resolution 670
followed in September, 1990 that imposed an air blockade and measures to
enforce it.
After the war in April, 1991, UN Resolution 687 was adopted. It required
Saddam accept cease fire terms and comply with Geneva protocols banning
biological and chemical weapons. It also affirmed Kuwait's sovereignty,
but it wasn't good enough for US officials who wanted sanctions to
remain in force until Saddam was removed.
Later on, the oil for food and medicine program was adopted under UN
Resolution 986 in 1995 but was hopelessly inadequate by design. An
internal UN report in 1999 revealed it delivered only $74 of food per
annum per person (about 21 cents a day) and $15 worth of medicines
(about 4 cents a day) with vitally needed items banned or in short
supply like syringes, anesthetics, vaccines, antibiotics and other
drugs. Everything with potential "dual use" was blocked - chlorine to
purify water, vital medical equipment, chemotherapy and pain-killing
drugs, ambulances, and anything Washington wished to deny the country
punitively with horrific consequences.
Further complicating things, all Iraqi funds were frozen and
administered through a US-controlled Development Fund for Iraq. In
addition, UN Resolution 661 stipulated all goods entering the country
had to be approved by a 15 member committee that included the five
permanent Security Council members. Approval had to be unanimous with
every member having veto power. The US representative abused his
authority by blocking items or causing long delays in importing others.
The practice became so extreme, on one occasion baby food was denied on
the grounds adults might consume it. At other times, items on the World
Health Organization (WHO) humanitarian priority list were blocked such
as rice, school books, paper, agricultural pesticides, medical journals
and catheters for babies.
The results were predictable and devastating. Normal life was impossible
and became a daily struggle to survive. It became apparent by the
mid-1990s many didn't or wouldn't:
-- the UN World Food Program (WFP) reported 2.4 million Iraqi children
were severely at nutritional risk in September, 1995;
-- in December, 1995, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
said 12% of Baghdad children were "wasted, 28% stunted and 29% under
weight;"
-- by year end 1995, FAO reported 567,000 Iraqi children
sanction-related deaths;
-- by March, 1996, WHO noted a six-fold mortality rate increase among
children under five;
-- in October, 1996 UNICEF reported 4500 monthly Iraqi children deaths
from sanction-caused starvation and disease;
-- by 1999, the under five child mortality rate rose three-fold from
1989, malnutrition doubled, and the entire young child population was
affected;
-- UN Secretary-General Boutras-Boutras- Ghali noted how health
conditions deteriorated dramatically by the mid-1990s, and by 1997 the
WHO Director General said Iraq's health care system was systemically
broken; in addition, malaria, typhoid, cholera and other
life-threatening and communicable diseases were rampant.
These actions were committed willfully and are war crimes under relevant
Geneva Conventions and other international law. They also constitute
genocide under provisions of the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide that "means any (acts like those
listed above) committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the
national, ethnical, racial or religious group (by) killing (its)
members; causing (them) serious bodily or mental harm; (or) deliberately
inflicting (on them) conditions (that may destroy them in whole or in
part)."
US administrations under GHW Bush, Bill Clinton and GW Bush are
criminally liable under "the genocide convention" and other relevant
international law. Up to the March, 2003 attack and invasion, more than
1.5 million Iraqis, including over one million children, likely died
from the combination of war and economic sanctions. Two UN heads of
Iraqi humanitarian relief resigned under them in anger and frustration
with Dennis Halliday saying in 1998 he did so because he "had been
instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of
genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over one
million individuals, children and adults" including 5000 Iraqi children
monthly in his judgment.
To date, most members of Congress are mute on the Iraq genocide and
continue funding it with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. Yet
on October 10, the House Foreign Relations Committee hypocritically
passed a non-binding resolution calling the 1915 - 1923 Armenian
holocaust (taking 1.0 to 1.5 million lives) genocide with a full House
vote on the measure still scheduled for November in spite of waning
support for it and uncertainty where it will go in the Senate.
Speaker Pelosi still backs the measure and in 2006 as Minority Leader
pledged to support legislation "that would properly acknowledge the
Armenian Genocide. It is imperative that the United States recognize
this atrocity and move to renew our commitment to eliminate genocide
whenever and wherever it exists." Today, Speaker Pelosi is mute on Iraq,
Afghanistan and fully supports AIPAC's agenda and its top priority of
war with Iran. She's not bothered by her own government's genocide that
far exceeds the Ottoman and post-Ottoman Turkish Armenian slaughter
during and after WW I. The data below estimates as many as four million
Iraqis have perished from 1990 - 2007, but speaker Pelosi's condemnation
of it is nowhere in sight.
Dr. Gideon Polya is a well-published biological scientist who's book,
"Body Count: Global avoidable mortality since 1950," came out this year.
It "documents.. ..non-reported (worldwide) avoidable death(s) of 1.3
billion people since 1950" including in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also
published his data on millions of violent and non-violent deaths under
the three most recent US administrations in articles like his October 7
one on Countercurrents. org. In it, he cites data on Iraq from the
Lancet, UN and British polling firm ORB. His "Asian Wars" totals in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Occupied Palestine and Lebanon are horrific, and, if
correct, exceed any others published to date. A summary of his data follows.
-- Eight million total violent and non-violent deaths in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon breaking down as follows:
-- 70,000 "US-backed" Israeli-caused deaths in Lebanon from 1978 - 2006,
10,000 of which were violent killings "by Israelis" or their "surrogates; "
-- 300,000 1967-2007 Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) deaths plus
another 10,000 violent deaths;
-- 200,000 violent 1990-91 Gulf war deaths;
-- 1.7 million 1990-2003 Iraqi sanctions-caused deaths including 1.2
million children under age five;
-- 3.2 million 2001-2007 US Afghanistan war deaths including UN
Population Division data totaling 2.5 million plus 700,000 children
under age five;
-- 2.0 million 2003-07 US Iraq war deaths including 1.2 million UK
polling firm ORB violence-related estimates plus 800,000 children under
age five from UNICEF data; and
-- 500,000 2001-07 opiate drug-related deaths resulting from the
resurgent Afghan opium industry under US-UK occupation; the UN Office on
Drugs and Crime estimates its output at 93% of world production.
Polya cites the failure of occupying powers to supply essential
"life-sustaining requisites" as a major cause of preventable deaths. He
also notes his eight million estimate exceeds the Nazi-inflicted Jewish
holocaust total of about six million. And he rightly observes that major
media misreporting, denying or "ignoring of this horrendous, ongoing
mass" slaughter is the equivalent of Jewish holocaust denial and doing
it endangers security for "both....victims and....perpetrators ."
There's no denying the toll on victims, but consider the cost at home
post-9/11:
law. Anyone charged under it loses all constitutionally protected rights
and can be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment including torture.
By Stephen Lendman
Special to PalestineChronicle. com*
On October 5, George Bush confronted a public uproar and defended his
administration claiming "This government does not torture people." That
claim was hardly accurate. Once secret US Department of Justice (DOJ)
legal opinions confirm the Bush administration condones torture by
endorsing "the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the
Central Intelligence Agency." It also condones paramilitary thuggery,
oppressive occupation, and genocide.
*Torture as Policy under George Bush*
In a hollow posturing gesture, DOJ publicly declared torture "abhorrent"
in a December, 2004 legal opinion. That secretly changed after Alberto
Gonzales became Attorney General in February, 2005 and authorized
physical and psychological brutality as official administration policy.
This continues unabated in violation of international and US laws that
include fifth and eighth amendment prohibitions against cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment in all forms for any reason. These
practices been long-standing US official policy, nonetheless, but the
mask came off post-9/11 when former CIA Counterterrorism Center chief
Cofer Black (now Blackwater USA's vice-chairman) told a joint
House-Senate intelligence committee hearing September 26, 2002: "There
was a before-9/11 and an after-9/11 (on the use of torture). After 9/11,
the gloves came off" and "old" standards no longer apply.
Further, George Bush signed a secret September 17, 2001 "finding"
authorizing CIA to kill, capture and detain "Al Qaeda" members anywhere
in the world and rendition them to secret black site torture prisons for
interrogation presumed to include torture.
As White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales then wrote a sweeping
memorandum to George Bush January 25, 2002 calling the Geneva
Conventions "quaint" and "obsolete" and claimed the administration could
ignore Geneva international law in interrogating prisoners henceforth.
He also outlined plans to try prisoners in military "commissions" and
deny them all protections under international law including due process
and habeas rights. DOD Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was on board as well.
In December, 2002, he approved a menu of banned interrogation practices
that allowed most anything short of what would cause organ failure.
A new book called "Administration of Torture," by two ACLU attorneys,
contains evidence (from FOIA requests) from over 100,000 newly released
government documents. It reveals how US military interrogators carried
out abuse and torture orders from their superiors on scores of
prisoners. The book quotes Major General Michael Dunlavey who had DOD
responsibility for interrogations of "suspected terrorists." He and
Guantanamo commander General Geoffrey Miller both told the FBI they got
their "marching orders" from Donald Rumsfeld to use harsh methods at
Guantanamo that presumably were meant for all other US-run torture
prisons as well. It was also revealed that Rumsfeld was "personally
involved" in overseeing the torture-interrogati on of Mohammed al
Qahtani. He was falsely accused of being the 20th 9/11 hijacker,
confessed under torture, and then retracted his testimony later as
completely untrue.
Torture violates international law. The (non-binding) Universal
Declaration of Human Rights outlawed it in 1948. The four 1949 Geneva
Conventions then banned any form of "physical or mental coercion" and
affirmed detainees must at all times be treated humanely. Its first two
conventions protect sick and wounded forces in battle. The third one
defines who is a prisoner of war and establishes "minimum standards" for
POW treatment. The fourth convention applies to civilians and affords
them protections during war that require they be treated humanely. All
four conventions have a common thread called Common Article Three. It
requires non-combatants be treated humanely at all times. There are no
exceptions for any reasons and violations are grave breaches under
Geneva and other international law that constitute crimes of war and
against humanity.
The European Convention followed Geneva in 1950. Then in 1984, the UN
Convention Against Torture became the first binding international
instrument dealing exclusively with the issue of banning torture in any
form for any reason. These are sacred international laws all
signatories, that include the US, are bound by. No longer under George
Bush's unconstitutional "unitary executive" authority power grab
Chalmers Johnson calls a "bald-faced assertion of presidential
supremacy... .dressed up in legalistic mumbo jumbo." Condoning torture as
official policy under it is Exhibit A.
In her important new book, "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang
Defied the law," law professor and current National Lawyers Guild
president Marjorie Cohn calls torture abhorrent and violates at least
two US laws - the 1996 War Crimes Act and 1994 Torture Statute. The US
is also party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) that guarantees the right to life and prohibits cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment.
The 1996 War Crimes Act provides up to life imprisonment or the death
penalty for persons convicted of committing war crimes within or outside
the US. Administration memos from Gonzales, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, and
David Addington supported dictatorial powers for the president and
advised Al Qaeda and Taliban interrogators were exempt from torture laws
under George Bush's "commander-in- chief powers." Cohn, in her book,
explained "the Torture Convention permits no such exemption, even during
wartime."
Yoo and Bybee also distorted what constitutes torture by claiming
psychological harm must last "months or even years." Otherwise, it's
just harsh "enhanced interrogation" of the secret kinds George Bush
authorized in a July, 2006 executive order. They reportedly include
sleep deprivation, simulated drowning, stress positions, prolonged
isolation, sensory deprivation and/or overload, beatings, induced
hypothermia, and more that can cause irreversible physical and
psychological harm including psychoses.
The October, 2006 Military Commissions Act followed, appropriately
called the "torture authorization act." It gives the administration
extraordinary unconstitutional powers to detain, interrogate and
prosecute alleged terror suspects and anyone thought to be their
supporters. The law lets the president designate anyone in the world an
"unlawful enemy combatant," without corroborating evidence, and order
they be arrested and incarcerated indefinitely in military prisons
outside the criminal justice system without habeas and due process
rights. US citizens aren't exempt. We're all "enemy combatants" under
this law. Anyone charged under it loses all constitutionally protected
rights and can be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment including
torture.
Ironically, on the one year anniversary of the Military Commissions Act
enactment, Fr. Louie Vitale and Fr. Steve Kelly were both sentenced to
five months in federal prison for opposing torture. They also oppose
teaching it at Fort Huachuca, Arizona and tried to deliver a letter with
their views to the base commander, Major General Barbara Fast, former
head of military intelligence in Iraq. Both priests were arrested for
trespassing while kneeling in prayer on the base driveway in November,
2006. In an appalling miscarriage of justice, the presiding judge
refused to allow any evidence of torture to be introduced. He also ruled
out discussion of the illegality of the Iraq war and all references to
international law.
Relief from these type abuses are nowhere in sight as leading Democrats
condone them and now assure extremist Attorney General nominee Michael
Mukasey's nomination won't be challenged. He promises business as usual
that's bad news for supporters of the law. He earned his bona fides as a
US District Court Southern District of New York judge by ruling Jose
Padilla, a US citizen, could be imprisoned without trial and held
indefinitely by the military.
Padilla spent three and a half years uncharged in a 9 by 7-foot isolated
South Carolina Navy brig cell where he underwent alternating sensory
deprivation and overload and was denied the right to counsel for two
years. Months of beatings, mind-altering drugs, and denial of medical
treatment destroyed his mind, turned him to mush, and him easy pickings
to convict on all charges without evidence he broke any law. Under Bush
administration justice, we're all potential Jose Padillas in a nation
where the rule of law affords no protection, and torture is the
preferred means of social control.
*Administration Outsourced Paramilitarism*
The Bush administration believes anything government can do private
business does better, so let it. And that applies to the military as
well with Blackwater USA's powerful emergence Exhibit A. Author Jeremy
Scahill portrays the company as "the world's most powerful mercenary
army" in his frightening new book about it. It describes a "shadowy
mercenary company (employing) some of the most feared professional
killers in the world....accustomed to operating without worry of legal
consequences. ...largely off the congressional radar." It has "remarkable
power and protection within the US war apparatus" with unaccountable
license to practice street violence with impunity that includes
cold-blooded murder.
A congressional report indicates Blackwater received more than $1
billion in mostly State Department no-bid contracts since 2001. It's to
provide security services for US diplomats, officials and others once
assigned to the military at around six times the cost and can be up to
$1200 per man-day. With Bush administration backing, it operates outside
the law and Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and is immune from
civil lawsuits like the military. Scahill calls the company the "Bush
administration' s Praetorian Guard" with "immunity and impunity" to do as
it pleases.
Today, around 200,000 private contractors operate in Iraq. Up to 100,000
of them are paramilitary mercenaries from companies like Blackwater,
DynCorp, ArmorGroup, Erinys, Triple Canopy and others like the
Australian-owned Unity Resources that murdered two Iraqi women October
9. Blackwater is the largest, is close to the Bush administration, and
is cashing in big as a war profiteer from huge continuing no-bid contracts.
The company was founded in 1996 by former Navy SEAL Eric Prince who's
also closely allied to the extremist Christian Right. Blackwater came
into its own post-9/11 and is now the world's best connected, largest
paramilitary army. It employs 2300 personnel in nine countries with
20,000 or more others on call as needed. The company also has its own 20
aircraft fleet that includes helicopter gunships as well as a private
intelligence division and a 7000 acre Moyock, North Carolina
headquarters Scahill calls "the world's largest private military base."
Controversy surrounding Blackwater made headlines after its mercenaries
killed as many as 28 Iraqis in al-Nisour September 16 by some accounts
and wounded dozens more. It was only the latest incident involving the
company that has a disturbing history of instigating unprovoked violence
and then falsely claim it acted in self-defense as Eric Prince told
Congress saying his men act "appropriately at all times."
A new congressional account from State Department and company documents
reveals otherwise. It shows the company has been involved in at least
195 "escalation of force" incidents since early 2005 that include
previously unreported Iraqi civilian killings. In at least one of them,
evidence proved Blackwater personnel tried covering up what happened
with a falsified report, and the State Department made no effort to hold
them accountable or order the company to pay compensation to the
families of the victims.
Agence France-Presse reported on September 16 Blackwater personnel shot
recklessly "at everything that moved with a machine gun and even with a
grenade launcher (as well as from two hovering helicopters) . There was
panic. Everyone tried to flee. Vehicles tried to make U-turns to escape.
There were dead bodies and wounded people everywhere. The road was full
of blood. A bus was also hit and several of its occupants were wounded."
Among the dead were women and children. A daughter witnessing her mother
shot in the head and killed said: "They are killers. I swear to God, not
one bullet was shot at them. Why did they shoot us?"
Following the incident, investigations were launched that are little
more than damage control cover-up. The FBI is involved as well as a
joint American-Iraqi inquiry. Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki has gone
back and forth on this one. At first, he demanded Blackwater personnel
leave Iraq. He then backed down under pressure. He'll likely await the
inquiry's findings that are out in part from Iraqi investigators, but
again said he wants Washington to sever all Blackwater ties, remove the
company from Iraq in six months, and have it pay each family $8 million
in compensation.
It won't ever happen, even though early findings conclude Blackwater's
actions were unprovoked, the al-Nisour massacre was a deliberate crime,
those involved in it should be charged, put on trial, and the families
of victims fairly compensated. The findings are similar to an initial US
military report that one Pentagon official confirmed saying Blackwater's
actions were "obviously excessive, it was obviously wrong. The
civilians... .didn't have any weapons (and) none of the IP (Iraqi police)
or any local security forces fired (on Blackwater). "
Investigations are still continuing, the State Department is in damage
control mode, and an October 4 House-passed bill (not retroactive) just
made US contractors accountable for felony crimes under the 2000
Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA). In addition, new
operating procedures have been instituted to paper over the whole
affair. Nothing, in fact, will change, however. Blackwater personnel
will stay in place, none of them will face criminal charges, and things
are again business as usual with the company's paramilitaries back on
Iraqi streets after being banned from operating there by an impotent
prime minister.
A sign of things to come came a day ahead of the October House Committee
on Oversight and Government Reform Blackwater hearing. It was revealed
the company's Presidential Airways subsidiary got a new government
contract to supply aircraft, crew and equipment for flight operations in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Blackwater personnel
may likely show up anywhere and currently patrol New Orleans streets for
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) post-hurricane Katrina. Their
presence is menacing everywhere, and they may show up soon in a
neighborhood near you as the "war on terrorism" touches down at home.
*Imperial Conquest and Occupation*
Current rhetoric aside, even Alan Greenspan's new book admitted what's
"politically inconvenient to acknowledge (but) everyone knows: the Iraq
war is largely about oil" and it was "essential" Saddam be removed to
control it. Unmentioned was Iraq's importance that explains why
Washington plans permanent occupation of the country. The Middle East
has two-thirds of the world's proved oil reserves; Iraq has the most
untapped amounts of it; and it's the easiest gotten, cheap to refine
light sweet kind Big Oil covets. The country is also strategically
located between Saudi Arabia and Iran at the top of the Persian Gulf.
That makes it a perfect site for military bases sitting atop an ocean of
oil worth trillions of dollars and surrounded by lots more of it.
The strategy to seize it was simply conceived but hopelessly flawed -
replace the "cradle of civilization" with a newly created free market
paradise with all that oil as grand prize pickings. It's still up for
grabs, but a huge supportive infrastructure is in place and still being
built for permanent occupation.
By May, 2005, US forces were operating out of 106 bases around the
country from an original 120 number of sites. They range in size from
the huge Main Operating Base (MOB) Camp Victory complex near Baghdad
airport with thousands of US troops to others for fewer numbers called
Forward Operation Sites (FOS) that are still major installations. There
are also many smaller Cooperative Security Locations (CSL) as well as
prisons and detention facilities throughout the country plus others for
Iraqi military and police units.
A sign of permanency are four to six or more super-bases built and
planned, the largest of which is the huge Balad one. It's the major Air
Force facility in the country with its state of the art "Kingpin" air
traffic control center (called the Common Grid Reference System) that
divides the country's airspace into "kill boxes." The Army's largest
logistical support center and secret Combined Joint Special Operations
Task Force (CJSOTF) are also there as well as well as thousands of
civilian contractors in neighborhoods charmingly called "KBR-land."
Balad and other major bases are enormous in size and on the order of
small towns. They encompass 15 - 20 square miles with double runways as
long as 12,000 feet, and Balad's air traffic operates round the clock
and is comparable in number of takeoffs and landings to Chicago's O'Hare
that along with Atlanta's Hartsfield are the world's two busiest airports.
In addition, they have their own neighborhoods and kinds of amenities
found back home. They include department store-sized post exchanges,
fast food outlets, movie theaters with the latest films, swimming pools,
miniature golf courses, elaborate gymnasium and sports facilities,
satellite internet access, cable TV, air-conditioning, international
phone service and more. All the comforts of home including takeout pizza
and Monday night football in the middle of a war zone.
Other major facilities are at al-Talil near Nasiriya in the South; the
largest Marine base at al-Asad in Western Anbar province; al-Qayyara, 50
miles southeast of Mosul in the North; the US military command HQ at
Camp Victory/Camp Liberty near Baghdad International Airport; Camp Marez
near Mosul Airport; Camp Cook north of Baghdad; and a new base near
Irbil in the North. In addition, another new Forward Operating base is
being built near Zurbatiya near the Iranian border to be completed in
November. It's location is provocative as the centerpiece of a new
border control surveillance, monitoring and logistical support strategy
called "Combat Outpost Shocker."
Then, there's what critics call "Fortress Baghdad" or the "ultimate
gated community" inside the city's four square mile fortress-like Green
Zone. It's surrounded by thick blast-proof concrete walls, and to enter
visitors must pass through up to eight checkpoints. Inside, security is
intense and includes full body searches, electronic scanners,
explosive-sniffing dogs and every other human and high-tech measure
imaginable for security.
The US embassy compound is there as well that when finished will be the
largest in the world. It's Vatican-sized in dimensions and hugely
fortified atop 104 acres, or six times larger than the UN complex in New
York. Reports vary on whether 21 or 27 buildings are planned but their
cost plus all facilities and perimeter security will top $1 billion.
Construction is continuing, far behind schedule, it's reported to be
shoddy, and it's already way over budget as predicted so the final cost
remains uncertain but will be plenty.
The compound has everything - its own water, electricity, sewers,
apartment buildings, swimming pool, shops, Marine barracks and will
house more than 1000 civilian staff plus a large private and military
security contingent. For the Iraqi people, it's a hated symbol of
imperial occupation Washington intends to be permanent, but it may in
the end go the way of the Saigon embassy in 1975. That's where the last
US Vietnam remnants were frenetically rooftop-helicoptere d out of the
country in humiliating drawdown defeat. It ended visions of permanence
then the way history may one day repeat in Iraq.
*Imperial Genocide in Iraq*
By any estimate, the human toll in Iraq is horrific from all that
happened after Saddam's August 2, 1990 Kuwait invasion. Four days later,
Operation Desert Shield was launched. It began with US-led UN-imposed
economic sanctions, large US and other troop deployments to the region,
and a sweeping Kuwait-funded PR campaign to win public support for
Operation Desert Storm that began January 17, 1991.
Before it ended six weeks later on February 28, US forces committed
grievous war crime violations of the Hague and Geneva Conventions and UN
and Nuremberg Charters. They included gratuitous mass killings as well
as bombing and destroying essential to life facilities that included:
-- power generating stations;
-- dams;
-- water purification capabilities;
-- sewage treatment and disposal systems;
-- telephone and other communications;
-- hospitals;
-- mosques;
-- residential areas affecting 10-20,000 homes, apartments and other
dwellings;
-- irrigation sites;
-- food processing, storage and distribution facilities;
-- hotels and retail establishments;
-- transportation infrastructure;
-- oil wells, pipelines, refineries and storage tanks;
-- chemical plants;
-- civilian shelters like Al Ameriyya that was attacked February 13,
1991 by two laser-guided "smart bombs" killing around 400 civilians
including 142 children;
-- factories and other commercial operations;
-- government offices;
-- historical sites; and more in a willful malicious effort to return
the country to a pre-industrial age and punish its people horrifically.
Lost was power, clean water, sanitation, fuel, transportation, medical
facilities and medications, adequate food, schools, private dwellings
and places of employment. Early post-war estimates placed the number of
civilians killed at 113,000 (mostly children) according to the Red
Crescent Society of Jordan. In addition, US CENTCOM commander, General
Schwarzkopf and others, estimated 100,000 or more Iraqi military deaths
plus thousands more killed gratuitously as they were retreating in disarray.
What then followed was 12 years of the most comprehensive genocidal
sanctions ever imposed on a country as an act of vengeance and
US-imposed imperial arrogance. They were first adopted in UN Resolution
661 four days after Iraq invaded Kuwait. They included a full trade
embargo that crippled the country economically but initially allowed in
food, medical and other essential humanitarian needs. UN Resolution 670
followed in September, 1990 that imposed an air blockade and measures to
enforce it.
After the war in April, 1991, UN Resolution 687 was adopted. It required
Saddam accept cease fire terms and comply with Geneva protocols banning
biological and chemical weapons. It also affirmed Kuwait's sovereignty,
but it wasn't good enough for US officials who wanted sanctions to
remain in force until Saddam was removed.
Later on, the oil for food and medicine program was adopted under UN
Resolution 986 in 1995 but was hopelessly inadequate by design. An
internal UN report in 1999 revealed it delivered only $74 of food per
annum per person (about 21 cents a day) and $15 worth of medicines
(about 4 cents a day) with vitally needed items banned or in short
supply like syringes, anesthetics, vaccines, antibiotics and other
drugs. Everything with potential "dual use" was blocked - chlorine to
purify water, vital medical equipment, chemotherapy and pain-killing
drugs, ambulances, and anything Washington wished to deny the country
punitively with horrific consequences.
Further complicating things, all Iraqi funds were frozen and
administered through a US-controlled Development Fund for Iraq. In
addition, UN Resolution 661 stipulated all goods entering the country
had to be approved by a 15 member committee that included the five
permanent Security Council members. Approval had to be unanimous with
every member having veto power. The US representative abused his
authority by blocking items or causing long delays in importing others.
The practice became so extreme, on one occasion baby food was denied on
the grounds adults might consume it. At other times, items on the World
Health Organization (WHO) humanitarian priority list were blocked such
as rice, school books, paper, agricultural pesticides, medical journals
and catheters for babies.
The results were predictable and devastating. Normal life was impossible
and became a daily struggle to survive. It became apparent by the
mid-1990s many didn't or wouldn't:
-- the UN World Food Program (WFP) reported 2.4 million Iraqi children
were severely at nutritional risk in September, 1995;
-- in December, 1995, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
said 12% of Baghdad children were "wasted, 28% stunted and 29% under
weight;"
-- by year end 1995, FAO reported 567,000 Iraqi children
sanction-related deaths;
-- by March, 1996, WHO noted a six-fold mortality rate increase among
children under five;
-- in October, 1996 UNICEF reported 4500 monthly Iraqi children deaths
from sanction-caused starvation and disease;
-- by 1999, the under five child mortality rate rose three-fold from
1989, malnutrition doubled, and the entire young child population was
affected;
-- UN Secretary-General Boutras-Boutras- Ghali noted how health
conditions deteriorated dramatically by the mid-1990s, and by 1997 the
WHO Director General said Iraq's health care system was systemically
broken; in addition, malaria, typhoid, cholera and other
life-threatening and communicable diseases were rampant.
These actions were committed willfully and are war crimes under relevant
Geneva Conventions and other international law. They also constitute
genocide under provisions of the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide that "means any (acts like those
listed above) committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the
national, ethnical, racial or religious group (by) killing (its)
members; causing (them) serious bodily or mental harm; (or) deliberately
inflicting (on them) conditions (that may destroy them in whole or in
part)."
US administrations under GHW Bush, Bill Clinton and GW Bush are
criminally liable under "the genocide convention" and other relevant
international law. Up to the March, 2003 attack and invasion, more than
1.5 million Iraqis, including over one million children, likely died
from the combination of war and economic sanctions. Two UN heads of
Iraqi humanitarian relief resigned under them in anger and frustration
with Dennis Halliday saying in 1998 he did so because he "had been
instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of
genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over one
million individuals, children and adults" including 5000 Iraqi children
monthly in his judgment.
To date, most members of Congress are mute on the Iraq genocide and
continue funding it with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. Yet
on October 10, the House Foreign Relations Committee hypocritically
passed a non-binding resolution calling the 1915 - 1923 Armenian
holocaust (taking 1.0 to 1.5 million lives) genocide with a full House
vote on the measure still scheduled for November in spite of waning
support for it and uncertainty where it will go in the Senate.
Speaker Pelosi still backs the measure and in 2006 as Minority Leader
pledged to support legislation "that would properly acknowledge the
Armenian Genocide. It is imperative that the United States recognize
this atrocity and move to renew our commitment to eliminate genocide
whenever and wherever it exists." Today, Speaker Pelosi is mute on Iraq,
Afghanistan and fully supports AIPAC's agenda and its top priority of
war with Iran. She's not bothered by her own government's genocide that
far exceeds the Ottoman and post-Ottoman Turkish Armenian slaughter
during and after WW I. The data below estimates as many as four million
Iraqis have perished from 1990 - 2007, but speaker Pelosi's condemnation
of it is nowhere in sight.
Dr. Gideon Polya is a well-published biological scientist who's book,
"Body Count: Global avoidable mortality since 1950," came out this year.
It "documents.. ..non-reported (worldwide) avoidable death(s) of 1.3
billion people since 1950" including in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also
published his data on millions of violent and non-violent deaths under
the three most recent US administrations in articles like his October 7
one on Countercurrents. org. In it, he cites data on Iraq from the
Lancet, UN and British polling firm ORB. His "Asian Wars" totals in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Occupied Palestine and Lebanon are horrific, and, if
correct, exceed any others published to date. A summary of his data follows.
-- Eight million total violent and non-violent deaths in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon breaking down as follows:
-- 70,000 "US-backed" Israeli-caused deaths in Lebanon from 1978 - 2006,
10,000 of which were violent killings "by Israelis" or their "surrogates; "
-- 300,000 1967-2007 Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) deaths plus
another 10,000 violent deaths;
-- 200,000 violent 1990-91 Gulf war deaths;
-- 1.7 million 1990-2003 Iraqi sanctions-caused deaths including 1.2
million children under age five;
-- 3.2 million 2001-2007 US Afghanistan war deaths including UN
Population Division data totaling 2.5 million plus 700,000 children
under age five;
-- 2.0 million 2003-07 US Iraq war deaths including 1.2 million UK
polling firm ORB violence-related estimates plus 800,000 children under
age five from UNICEF data; and
-- 500,000 2001-07 opiate drug-related deaths resulting from the
resurgent Afghan opium industry under US-UK occupation; the UN Office on
Drugs and Crime estimates its output at 93% of world production.
Polya cites the failure of occupying powers to supply essential
"life-sustaining requisites" as a major cause of preventable deaths. He
also notes his eight million estimate exceeds the Nazi-inflicted Jewish
holocaust total of about six million. And he rightly observes that major
media misreporting, denying or "ignoring of this horrendous, ongoing
mass" slaughter is the equivalent of Jewish holocaust denial and doing
it endangers security for "both....victims and....perpetrators ."
There's no denying the toll on victims, but consider the cost at home
post-9/11:
-- a nation with no outside enemies permanently at war and claims the
right to wage preventive wars under the doctrine of "anticipatory
self-defense" using first strike nuclear weapons even against
non-nuclear states;
-- world stability and peace further threatened by the administration' s
abandoning NPT, ending Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty protection,
rescinding and subverting the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention,
deploying so-called "missile defense" for offense, and plans to
weaponize space toward the goal of "full-spectrum (unchallengeable)
dominance" of all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space,
electromagnetic spectrum and information systems plus as much of the
world's energy resources as possible;
-- a military budget hugely exceeding the rest of the world combined;
The Independent Institute analyst Robert Higgs estimates the true FY
2007 budget exceeds $1 trillion with all defense-related items included;
-- a rogue government operating outside constitutional and international
laws and norms with the Congress and courts criminally complicit;
-- an unprecedented wealth disparity in an omnipotent corporatist state;
-- growing social decay and poverty in the richest country in the world;
-- a secretive, intrusive, repressive administration under a president
who disdains the public interest and is a serial liar and war criminal;
-- condoning and operating secret torture-prisons around the world as a
weapon of cruelty, vengeance and social control; and
-- a cesspool of corruption stemming from incestuous business-govenment
ties that defile democracy and mock any notion of government of, for and
by the people.
The toll in Israel is evident as well. Angela Godfrey-Goldstein is an
Israeli Jew, based in Jerusalem, and the Action Advocacy Officer with
the Israeli Committee Against (Palestinian) House Demolitions (ICAHD).
On August 30, 2007, she delivered an address at the UN Conference at the
EU Parliament in Brussels commemorating the fortieth anniversary of
Occupied Palestine. In it, she noted part of the toll on Israeli society
caused by 40 years of Palestinian repression:
-- around one million Israeli Jews "voted with their feet and left the
country;"
-- an estimate by some that up to 50% of Israeli youths refuse mandatory
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) service plus a "grey" Air Force refusal
rate of around 30%;
-- a significant recent observation from John Pilger that "something
(around the world) is changing. (There's a) swell of a
boycott....growing inexorably.. ..an important marker (may have) been
passed, reminiscent of the boycotts (preceding) sanctions against
apartheid South Africa" that led to the fall of its white-supremicist
government; and
-- her experience working with "diplomats, politicians and aid workers
in Israel and Palestine (shows) that, on an individual basis, there's
enormous personal support and empathy for the Palestinian cause" because
decades of abuse against them are intolerable and must end.
Push eventually will come to shove. We better hope it arrives soon. The
world can't wait much longer.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
//lendmanstephen@ sbcglobal. net.
and listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect. com Mondays at noon US central time.
*SOURCE: Palestine Chronicle*
